Field
The present disclosure relates generally to isolating secure functions of a meter or an intelligent electronic device (IED) by not exposing direct access to those functions on externally facing interfaces.
Description of the Related Art
Security is becoming a major issue with meters, also known as intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), especially as the interfaces to communicate with them transitions from being primarily serial to over networks. Since meters have been traditionally kept internal to networks, the security applied to them is often minimal, especially when compared to the security found in most modern servers. However, as attacks become more sophisticated and meters become more globally accessible, these old paradigms are no longer sufficient.
Additionally, an unfortunate side effect of the commercialization of a meter is reverse engineering and copying of both hardware and the software that runs on it. While methods such as locking the software inside of the chip, so that it cannot be easily read back out, can help prevent this, it only easily works with small code bases, which limit the features and power of the software.